Sexual Harassment Stories and Experiences

Alexa, Virginia

     Well, it all started when I got a job at a car dealership. Within the first month, a man was fired for putting his hands around my waist, and then moving his hands to my butt. This instance was handled quite quickly.

     But that’s not where it ended…The general manager (GM) as well as numerous sales reps continued on with the harassment. They would consistently make comments regarding my appearance, body, and my relationship.  I would hear things like “why do you always wear turtlenecks up to your eye balls?  We all still know how large your breast are”, “God I wish you were 21 so I could take you out and get you drunk”, “You have childbearing hips”, “You need an older man to take care of you”, “You shouldn’t be working, that’s a man’s job”,”Your so thick”, or “Your getting fat.”  I’m sure you can imagine the rest.  Every day, the first words out of their mouths would be something about my appearance:  “Hey beautiful!”, “Whats up boo!”, “Hey baby”; “Hey gorgeous”, “Your so fine” and so on, and so forth.

     That wasn’t the worst of it though… The worst was being touched by them. It made my skin crawl. My GM would come up behind me and rub my shoulders and lean over to watch my breasts rise and fall.  And his hands were constantly around my waist. 

     I didn’t know what to do except brush it off… after all..that was my defense mechanism.  I quickly became detached.  I felt that if I said something they’d fire me because I was one against 6+ guys.  I tried tactics like not wearing makeup, or talking on the cell phone to keep them away.  But it was all to no avail, and the harassment persisted.

     I would constantly complain and cry to my family and fiance about how I wanted to quit, but I could give them an explanation.  After all, I feared I would be blamed, or that someone would go after them, and that was the last thing I needed.  Finally I broke down. I spilled it all to my father…all of it. He told me that I should talk to an attorney, before I just up-and-quit.

     So..I did. The attorney took the case immediately, reviewed my formal complaint and gave me the OK to submit it. 

     The complaint letter was addressed to the owner because the GM was involved.  He proceeded to sick his pit bulls (Human Resources) on me.  They that told me that one guy had fessed up, but the rest denied it and that in their opinion I had brought it upon myself.

     I had to leave…

     A suit is now in progress, and the whole thing has effected me emotionally, mentally, and physically. Because I suffered in silence for about 8 months, I faced scrutiny from my fiance and father who were baffled that I wouldn’t tell them sooner.  Soon, I made an appointment with a therapist, and found that the 8 months of silence also landed me with post traumatic stress syndrome. Now I don’t want to go near a dealership, or be any place any of those men might be.  I have flashbacks, zone off, have nightmares, and am very depressed.

     You see, I believe too many women suffer in silence simply because they don’t want to face the problem.  I sure didn’t want to.  Now I am in a position where I have to deal with all kinds of what-ifs about court, and find myself often feeling guilty for telling.  If I could give any words of advice it would be: don’t wait to talk even if your job may be threatened.  In the end, what you didn’t want to face will eventually surface, and when it does, things will be a lot worse then if handled promptly in the first place.

     My prayers go out to anyone who has faced harassment because it’s so extremely hard to deal with.  Just know, you don’t deserve it.  So just please speak up so it doesn’t have the same impact on you that it has had on me. No one deserves to suffer in silence. No one.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 11:31 am and is filed under Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Retaliation, Backlash, and Victim-blaming, Health Effects, Formal Investigations and Litigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.